Mission Critical: Afghanistan

Abigail Austen is a former Parachute Regiment officer who in 2007 became the first British army officer to change her gender, before serving for four years alongside the US Army in Afghanistan. Now, together with director Will West, she returns to the battlefield at the invitation of her former Afghan colleagues. For this shocking edition of Unreported World, Austen and West have secured unique and extraordinary access to a turning point in the battle against Isis and the Taliban across Helmand and Kandahar provinces, and are the first western television crew to revisit Camp Bastion since the British army withdrew. Following the end of coalition combat operations at the close of 2014, Afghans have been leading the fight against Isis and a resurgent Taliban. In 2015, the Afghan army has lost ten times more soldiers than the British lost in 15 years.